Legal Transformation in the Indian Subcontinent under British Rule: A Critical Analysis from Company Charters to Independence, 1600–1947

Abstract

The legal history of the Indian subcontinent under English rule was neither an abrupt transplantation of English law nor a linear movement from “traditional” law to modern law. It was a prolonged process in which the East India Company and, after 1858, the British Crown reorganised existing systems while progressively introducing legislation, English legal concepts and centralised courts. This article traces that development from English trading settlements to the constitutional transition of 1947. It examines Company courts, the Regulating Act 1773 and Supreme Court at Calcutta, jurisdictional conflicts in 1781, nineteenth-century codification, High Courts, criminal and civil procedure, and constitutional reforms from 1861 to 1935. Particular attention is given to legal pluralism and the dual character of colonial law as administration and adjudication. The article argues that the central legacy of the era was a durable institutional and statutory framework. The Indian Independence Act 1947 ended British sovereignty but preserved legal continuity, enabling India and Pakistan to inherit and modify much of the existing legal order.

Keywords: Indian legal history; British India; East India Company; colonial law; codification; judicial institutions; constitutional development; legal pluralism; independence, 1947

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22921420